But it is
special to Bentjen. It came from a fellow Georgia National Guard soldier, Sgt.
Jim Kirchner. He has left it on his boot for good luck and to remember Kirchner.

"He is
with me all the time," said Bentjen, one of several hundred Army medics
serving in Iraq.

Some medics
stay behind at base aid stations where they treat everything from headaches to
heart troubles to shrapnel wounds.

Others go out
into the field and engage in firefights. Most soldiers try to keep their medics
safely behind them. A wounded or dead medic can hinder a mission and hurt
morale.

Medics are
often first on the scene to help wounded soldiers. Under combat conditions,
they must quickly make decisions on whether to insert a breathing tube, apply a
tourniquet or amputate a limb that can mean the difference between life or
death.

It was the
morning of June 12 when Kirchner spilled his blood on Bentjen. Insurgents were
firing mortars at their base about 15 miles south of Baghdad.
One landed just outside Kirchner's tent, blasting him out of his cot and
spraying his back, shoulders and right arm with shrapnel.

Kirchner
started screaming: "I'm hit! I'm hit! Medic! Medic!"

Bentjen was across
the base when he heard the explosion. He rushed toward the commotion around
Kirchner's tent.

Inside, Bentjen
saw dust floating in the sunlight streaming through holes in the tent.

"It looked
like a starry sky at night," Bentjen recalled. "All of this blood was
all over the floor. It was surreal, like you were watching it on TV or a movie
or something."

Kirchner was
bleeding heavily. His left lung was collapsed, and his breathing was labored.
His liver, a kidney and pancreas were damaged. He had at least 28 pieces of
shrapnel in his body.

Bentjen
bandaged Kirchner's arm. He closed the wounds in Kirchner's back with sticky
gauze, improving his breathing and buying him precious time. Then he helped
carry Kirchner to an ambulance.

Bentjen didn't
recognize Kirchner until he rolled him onto his back. The two had shared the
same tent in Kuwait.

"That
surreal feeling came again," Bentjen said. "I had never treated
anybody that I had actually known. It freaked me out."

Kirchner,
recovering back home in Paulding County, credits Bentjen and other medics from
the 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment with saving his life.

The medics at
this base are a tight-knit group. Most of the 32 medics in the battalion have
survived roadside bombings, some more than once. Two were severely injured in
bombings and sent home

Several shaved
their heads in solidarity, leaving only narrow Mohawk-like strips of hair. A
few got tattoos of menacing looking skulls on their arms that boast
"Combat Medic." Occasionally, they get together in a wooden shack and
sing silly songs about the war.

All agree that
treating fellow soldiers, whom they consider family, is emotionally draining.

Back home,
Bentjen, 33, is a charge nurse at AtlantaMedicalCenter.
He lives with his wife and two young children in Douglasville. He has a photo
of his son, Sam, and daughter, Emma, stuck to his rifle stock. He enlisted
because he thought he would look good in a uniform. Now, he wonders about the
decision he made.

"If I was
given a chance, I would be home in a second," he said. "I miss my
family and my work more than anything. I'm not much of a soldier."

Still, fellow
medics say Bentjen, with his civilian experience in emergency rooms, fills a
vital role at their base. Because of his depth of knowledge, higher-ranking
soldiers call him "specialist in charge."

Bentjen said
his work in Iraq
had been rewarding, despite his second thoughts about joining the military. It
has reinforced his desire to continue working in a hospital.

A fellow medic,
Spc. Colby Smith, has had a far different experience. He joined the military so
it would pay for his college tuition. He wanted to become a cardiologist. But
he is now soured on the idea. Treating fellow soldiers has been too traumatic
of an experience.

It all started
on July 20. Smith was with a convoy of soldiers hunting insurgents near the
town of Yusufiyah when he heard an
explosion. He turned and saw the Humvee behind him rolling over. It had been
hit by an insurgent's bomb.

Spc. Richard
Ingram of LaGrange was thrown from the vehicle, and it rolled over his left
arm, nearly severing it. Smith rushed to his side.

"There
were five million things going through my head. I was coughing up blood,"
Ingram recalled. "I even asked the medic, 'Am I going to die?' "

Smith playfully
hit Ingram on the shoulder.

"I hit him
because I didn't know how to answer him," Smith said.

Smith reassured
Ingram that everything was going to be OK. Another soldier had improperly tied
a tourniquet on Ingram's arm. Smith removed it and placed it in the correct
position. He thought about amputating but decided against it, instead placing
Ingram's arm in a splint.

Another
passenger in the vehicle, Sgt. Joe Brown of Dallas,
Ga., was also injured in the rollover. He
had a broken jaw, broken ribs and was bleeding from his right ear. Smith
treated him, clearing his airway so he could breathe.

After the
wounded soldiers had been safely evacuated, Smith's adrenaline started to wear
off. His hands were shaking. A fellow soldier helped wash the blood off them.

"I really
felt nauseated. The adrenaline was so high that I was getting tunnel
vision," said Smith, 23, who lives in Athens
and works at a video store.

Just a few days
earlier, Smith and Ingram had been tossing a football around. They shared the
same barracks at FortStewart.
And Smith said Brown often gave him marital advice.

He talked about
them one recent evening as he sat in a wooden shack where the medics hang out
between shifts.

"I came
into this shack and bawled my eyes out," Smith said. "After you work
on someone who is that close to you, medicine is sour. The beauty of it is
gone."

Ingram credits
Smith with helping save his life. He recently received a prosthetic arm and is
fly-fishing back in the United States.
Brown has recovered from his wounds and is back in Iraq.

Smith said he
wants to pursue something else when he returns home. He's thinking of starting
a computer business. Or he might run for political office some day.